It’s okay, the Constitution is just a piece of paper

06Jan

The Family Leader, a conservative Christian organization based in Iowa, is asking all GOP candidates to sign “The Marriage Vow” pledge. This pledge requires that the candidates declare a pro-marriage stance, oppose same-sex marriage, define homosexuality as a “choice,” and that marriage is undermined by adulterous factors such as pornography. Do you know who’s signed this “vow?” Michele Bachmann, and more recently Rick Santorum.

Vander Plaats, CEO of The Family Leader, told the Des Moines Register, “If you are looking at being a leader of our great country, we would like to have you pledge personal fidelity to your own spouse and a respect for the marital bonds of others.” Our country? Isn’t that pretentious sounding? This country belongs to more than just your uptight, holier than though, organization. It belongs to a great number of people with varying religions (and non-religions), and with differing viewpoints on homosexuality and pornography. Furthermore, your “marriage vow” calls for marriage to be defined by a Constitutional amendment thus banning same-sex marriages and pornography. The Constitution isn’t this public forum where you can write laws into place for every little thing you don’t agree with.

The Constitution is about protecting the inalienable rights of United States citizens, not taking them away. What could possibly be accomplished by banning same-sex marriage? Absolutely nothing, that’s what. You’ll still see innumerable amounts of same-sex couples, they just won’t be married. How does same-sex marriage affect anyone but the two people being married? Don’t even mention the “sanctity” of marriage that you’re supposedly working to protect…

The Sanctity of Marriage

Of course, the fundamentalists probably see this as a stepping stone to the eventual outlawing of homosexuality as a whole. This would only open the doors to the outlawing of many other freedoms as time went on. (religions, alcohol, etc.) They say, “the Bible is very clear about same-sex marriages,” yeah, it is, and what else is it clear on that we don’t observe in modern society?

Then we get to the whole porn banning aspect. For those that fell asleep during history class, and/or current events, what happens when you take a beloved activity of the masses and outlaw it. For evidence one would have to look no further than prohibition of alcohol from the early 20th century or that of our current marijuana prohibition. When people can not access the things they want a black market environment will be created to fulfill it. It was true with alcohol prohibition and it is true with marijuana prohibition. And as is always true with black markets, they can be dangerous and lead to increased crime rates. The pornography industry rakes in $10-14 billion every year, not only does that money changing hands help our economy but think of the number of jobs it across the board.

You know, I can’t help but find this even the slightest bit ironic. Here we have a few Republicans, who have specifically expressed an interest in creating and preserving jobs. How do they plan to show how important it is to them? By outlawing an entire industry that generates countless jobs, brilliant. Bachmann has claimed she’s all for small, non-intrusive government, which makes her signing of this “vow” quite the ironic gesture. Rick Santorum, on the other hand, doesn’t see a problem with invading the privacy and lives of every American and stripping every right we deserve away. This also makes me think about how many conservative candidates have expressed an almost xenophobic fear of the Islamic community and how they want nothing more than to impose Sharia law on everyone. I’m not sure what they’d call what they’re doing with the attempts at outlawing same-sex marriage and pornography. Let’s take a look at the definition for Sharia:

the moral code and religious law of Islam.Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah.

Boy, that sounds exactly like what is happening here, doesn’t it? Let’s see what happens when we change a few words from that definition.

the moral code and religious law of Christianity. Judeo-Christian Sharia is derived from a single source: the Bible.

This is precisely why we have separation of church and state, and precisely why it must remain so. If we are to be ruled by the laws of one religion’s single book we might as well admit that:

Christianity is the single and only legitimate religion in the United States, all other religions’ laws will be overruled by Christianity’s.

Regardless of differences in interpretation of the, at times, vague text of the Bible, whomever is in charge of the theocracy shall decide what is right or wrong, their interpretation is the one and only. If you don’t agree with the way a particular law from the Bible has been interpreted, tough luck, that’s not for you to decide.

The only people who won’t have a problem with this are the fundamentalist Christians, in their minds, Christianity is the only true religion.

Does that sound sensationalist? That may not be the case. At an Iowa campaign stop Rick specifically stated that, “our civil laws have to comport with a higher law: God’s law.” On Thanksgiving Day at a candidates’ forum he said it again, “We have civil laws, but our civil laws have to comport with the higher law.” Still think it sounds sensationalist? Try this then, “We have Judeo-Christian values that are based on biblical truth….And those truths don’t change just because people’s attitudes may change.” I certainly hope when he says, “We,” he doesn’t mean the entire US population because he’s mistaken. As of 2011 Christianity accounts for anywhere between 59.9% and 76.0% of the US population. That may be a majority but it certainly isn’t all, and it definitely doesn’t justify fundamentalist Christians imposing their morals and views on others.

To be honest, I’ve gotten to the point where I can no longer tell if these candidates seriously think they have a shot at the Presidency, or if they’re just there to make the less extreme candidates seem like more sane choices by comparison.

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